There are indeed some prestige class .tex files made for the old awesome tome that did not get included in the 'final' version of the pdf, but could be included easily. Some of them never received edits to fit with the style of the other classes (appending 'ex', 'su', etc to abilities), some of them I made for my personal group and are fine as is, most of the stuff by Koumei is now outdated (old version of gadgeteer, etc). But if there was interest I could reinstall LaTeX and compile a 'final final' pdf and just include everything on the repository. I can't update the repository, so it would just be a direct download link.

Creating the pdf requires a compiler, and the latest version of TeXLive installed. (There used to be some weird dependencies for pdflatex included in the repo but I've done my best to make it compatible with a standard TeXlive install). Generally you'll need a Mac or Linux/Unix system.

I don't think that rev139 is actually all that recent, but my dev environment is currently down. I can upload a newer version to my GitHub repo in a little while if there is interest._________________It is a condition of wisdom in the archer to be patient because when the arrow leaves the bow, it returns no more.

Last edited by Aktariel on Fri Jan 29, 2016 12:24 am; edited 1 time in total

The release date is a little strange, but this is what I've got. Please note that there are two PDF files now, one intended solely for printing, and the other the more traditional version intended for use on electronic devices.

Every time I pointed someone to the Github for SuperTome they'd open the raw latex files and be all confused. There's a strong difference between people that know how to look at a github and everyone else in the world. I've since decided to switch to Gitbook, which lets you edit markdown files, and it compiles them into a webpage, PDF, epub, and mobi.

It's got a big blue "read" button, and buttons under that for each type of file download. That's much more obvious.

Currently, a minimal amount of classes, as well as all the race mechanics are up, as well as intro stuff. I plan on moving through skills and equipment and so forth as I find the time. The advantage of it being a website is that if people just use the site rather than getting a downloaded file, they won't have to go back to download updates, they'll just always see the latest version.

I ain't even mad about re- or un-doing so much of the work that's been done. The idea of the PDF was that at some point it would be "done" and so updates wouldn't matter a whole lot, but in fairness this project was conceived... 8 years ago (?) before gitbook was even possible.

My only hesitation is that Markdown, even GithubMarkdown, does not support as much of the complicated formatting that LaTeX does (not that that's always a good thing). I notice, for example, that none of the classes posted so far have level progression tables. :/

Looking into it, it does appear that tables are possible; it also looks like a hell of a lot of work to take existing material and convert it. The nice thing is, however, that updating to Markdown does make the raw files far more human readable, and is less "programming" than simply "word processing."_________________It is a condition of wisdom in the archer to be patient because when the arrow leaves the bow, it returns no more.

Tables are totally possible, but people end up looking up the rules on their phone a lot, and tables don't scale down well, so I'm not going to bother too much with those (probably still equipment tables but that's the only large tables I can think of). The "Classes" main page has a table showing the BAB rates and save rates per level. I personally don't think that every class ever needs 4 columns that duplicate those same rows that we all pretty much know by heart by now. Once you take out that, the rest of a class table is just abilities being listed out, but I've made sure that every ability for every class says what level you get it at and how it scales. Perhaps spell slot charts for casters will have to be retained as a table.

In terms of direct copying old latex to markdown, it's possible, but the current main tool for that is something like pandoc. Sadly, when I tried to use pandoc, it would just eat up any latex command that it didn't recognize during the conversion process, which makes it basically useless. I could create a custom tool myself at some point, but I think I'll only use it for all the spells. Converting each skill one at a time gives me a chance to review what those old entries *actually say*, compared to just what I think they say based on how my group runs it these days. I can apply fixes where needed, break up the different uses into their own section each for clarity, and so on.

Feats, Equipment, and Magic Items could do with some sprucing up as well. Magic Overview and Adventuring I expect to be pretty mechanical copies right from the SRD. Combat naturally has many changes under Tome. Starsailing and Planehopping are almost entirely "new" chapters based on compiling together bits that people have written. Spells can probably be generated easily enough. Presitge Classes can be added but I honestly don't care about them too much because my group never really uses them. There should probably be at least enough Monsters for the summons and mounts and stuff. Monster Advancement is pretty much straight SRD info. NPC Classes is also just the 5 classes (a little tomified but not really).

I ain't even mad about re- or un-doing so much of the work that's been done. The idea of the PDF was that at some point it would be "done" and so updates wouldn't matter a whole lot, but in fairness this project was conceived... 8 years ago (?) before gitbook was even possible.

My only hesitation is that Markdown, even GithubMarkdown, does not support as much of the complicated formatting that LaTeX does (not that that's always a good thing). I notice, for example, that none of the classes posted so far have level progression tables. :/

Looking into it, it does appear that tables are possible; it also looks like a hell of a lot of work to take existing material and convert it. The nice thing is, however, that updating to Markdown does make the raw files far more human readable, and is less "programming" than simply "word processing."

For most of what Tome PDFs really need... TeX seems a bit over-kill in a lot of cases.
I started working on a script to convert TeX to Markdown a few months ago, actually... Where's the code-base for the book?_________________Phlebotinum : fleh-bot-ih-nuhm • A glossary of RPG/Dennizen terminology • Favorite replies: [1]

I tried just now to get GitBook and GitHub to play nice, but it seemed not quite automatic, and it's not something I want to fiddle with late on a sunday, so for now there's no public repo of the markdown code. I'll try and see if I can get that set up some time._________________Ends Of The Matrix (GitBook), After Sundown (Gitbook), Immobile Sun

Note that every single time I save a file while editing though their editor they commit that change to the repo as an individual commit, so the commits number will jump crazy high.

As it says along the top of the github, you can still access the same PDF/Epub/Mobi versions via GitBook, or read it online. The online version is mobile friendly (big plus!!), and also has like three color schemes and two fonts to pick from (if you care about that)._________________Ends Of The Matrix (GitBook), After Sundown (Gitbook), Immobile Sun

Last edited by Lokathor on Sat Feb 06, 2016 2:02 am; edited 1 time in total

I like the gitbooks format, I'm actually glad to see the tome move away from latex.

Also, I might look into giving the Kappa the ability to use their natural shell as the Kappa Shell shield, and to be able have it enchanted just like a shield. Otherwise you might have the unintended, though hilarious, effect of a kappa fighter wearing a Kappa Shell great shield over his actual shell. Maybe have it come online at a specific BaB and require they already have great shield proficiency.

Also, the others I play with complained that the Lizardfolk is simply way too strong, and that you'd never play as a non-lizardfolk if you're any sort of melee guy. My basic options for making them weaker seem to be either taking away the +2 Str, or adding on a -2 Dex._________________Ends Of The Matrix (GitBook), After Sundown (Gitbook), Immobile Sun

Uh... your gaming group is stuck in some sort of reptilian memetic trap. While the Tome lizardfolk is alright for a melee character; I wouldn't assume anyone would think it's the be-all and end-all option for a melee build.

I'm going to assume that one, or more, players made a lizardfolk melee character; and it's become a norm for your gaming group. My own gaming group(s) have used a wide variety of species for martial characters in [Tome] games. Orcs, hobgoblins, bugbears, and gnolls at the lowest end. Gargoyles, (by CR) Dragons, Ogres and Bugbears in the low CRs. With Scorpion Folk, Minotaurs, Trolls and Frost Giants for "higher" CR melee types. What would you say has given your gaming group the notion that "lizardfolk" are ... "too strong"?_________________

Click here to see the hidden message (It might contain spoilers)

The Gaming Den; where Mathematics are rigorously applied to Mythology.

While everyone's Philosophy is not in accord, that doesn't mean we're not on board.

By almost any measure except a game packed to the brim with flaws, Human is the best Tome Martial character.

Who cares about +2 to strength when you can have an entire nother Combat feat to go with your mandatory level 1 Fiendish Dalliance?

Moar Combat Feats Please! And Moar Fiend Feats!

For some specific builds, I can very much see only caring about your Combat School Daze DC and nothing else, but does Lizardfolk even offer the +4 Str of an Orc?_________________

"DSMatticus" wrote:

Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?

That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.

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"FrankTrollman" wrote:

Really, the only thing the "my character can beat up your character" challenges ever do by presenting a clear and unambiguous beat down is to have the loser drop of the thread and pretend the challenge never happened.

"Frank Trollman" wrote:

But just because the character should have something defined into their play space that allows them to contribute to the situations that the game expects to demand of them, doesn't mean that those contributions should be exactly the same action every time. Indeed, at the point in which the other players can essentially memorize your character's actions and repeat them verbatim whether you're in the room or not - your design has failed.

Last edited by Kaelik on Tue Feb 09, 2016 2:31 pm; edited 2 times in total

So yeah, they've got kinda a tilted party when we get back to playing that game more, but whatever. It's fun I think, and they had fun with being a lizard squad from the lizard town that was visiting the dwarf/human/gnome mining town and such.

Kaelik wrote:

For some specific builds, I can very much see only caring about your Combat School Daze DC and nothing else, but does Lizardfolk even offer the +4 Str of an Orc?

Kaelik, for reference the Lizardfolk version they were talking about is here, along with all the other race writeups I'm using. Most are as you expect, a few are new that I made up to fill in some gaps that I sorta saw, and a few have minor boosts (bigger skill bonuses or whatever) or adjustments (eg: all Elf are a single race that just gets -2 Con /+2 Any instead of having 20 subtypes of varying obscurity with different fancy names and weird stat spreads).

Yeah in a world were Dragonborn WaterOrcs and Humans who take Fiendish Dalliance exist, I'm not sure how you can call that Race OP.

I suspect the real issue is that D&D has never had a decent Big Lizard that hits people PC race, which is why people saw one they liked and went with it.

Just like how people commonly ask if they can completely strip all the fluff from Dragonborn and just be a Lizard person with Fighter stats instead of a Kobold, the other lizard race._________________

"DSMatticus" wrote:

Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?

That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.

Click here to see the hidden message (It might contain spoilers)

"FrankTrollman" wrote:

Really, the only thing the "my character can beat up your character" challenges ever do by presenting a clear and unambiguous beat down is to have the loser drop of the thread and pretend the challenge never happened.

"Frank Trollman" wrote:

But just because the character should have something defined into their play space that allows them to contribute to the situations that the game expects to demand of them, doesn't mean that those contributions should be exactly the same action every time. Indeed, at the point in which the other players can essentially memorize your character's actions and repeat them verbatim whether you're in the room or not - your design has failed.

Last edited by Kaelik on Wed Feb 10, 2016 2:20 am; edited 1 time in total

In the game I'm running right now one of the players is playing a Reptilian Goliath. It works out. We agreed on just a +1 LA, which it occurs to me should have been a HD, but he already has a tendency to one shot enemies (with a gunslinger class I wrote up that admittedly needs some tweaks), so he's not hurting for stats._________________

Dean, on Paranoia wrote:

The book is a hardbound liars paradox.

Winnah wrote:

No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.

FrankTrollman wrote:

In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.

You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.

Iaimeki's Dragon Disciple relies on a bunch of feats that were in the same Unfinished Material thread of theirs and never made it into the Tome proper._________________

FrankTrollman wrote:

And if there are any weeds that grow better in barren soil than laziness and ignorance, I don't know what they are (and don't care enough to find out).

Kaelik wrote:

Because powerful men get away with terrible shit, and even the public domain ones get ignored, and then, when the floodgates open, it turns out there was a goddam flood behind it.

FrankTrollman wrote:

As far as death and human misery goes, Tobacco is basically World War II grinding on forever with no real sign of stopping in our life times. Death camps and nuclear bombs and stuff are certainly dramatic, but public health crises are always and forever bigger than wars on the global scale.

Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!

Also, Lokathor's stuff has also apparently been taken down from Gitbook/Github, so I'm working on getting the LaTeX moved over to MultiMarkdown a little more quickly than I was originally (the same glacial pace that updates have come at for the past few years, in fact).

Good news, my GitHub with Tome PDF is still up and running, and happily accepting pull requests._________________It is a condition of wisdom in the archer to be patient because when the arrow leaves the bow, it returns no more.

Aw man! I didn't think anyone kept using my supertome gitbook since it was so incomplete, and the tome PDF hadn't had any changes in like 4 months when I checked in on it, so i let my own stuff get moved around during some spring cleaning.

https://www.gitbook.com/book/lokathor/tome2017/details is a gitbook link to a partial tome thing. Some of the super tome material that was gitbook exclusive got blasted away when i threw out that to begin work on this. Tome is the king of all bikeshedding after all. I used it for a few months earlier this year, and then stuff came up and I'm not playing Tome at the moment.

Of course, what update to this thread could possibly be complete without announcing yet another new(!) flavor of Tome? A friend hasn't played DnD ever, but she got the 5e starter set, so she's been playing that with friends, but also doesn't know what she's doing or feel super confident about it. Naturally, any game without robots and blue soulfire is incomplete, so I told her that I'd assemble a stripped down Tome manual and run a tome game for her to be a player in. Right now it's just a Gist because I only actually started it yesterday, but there's already all seven race writeups (with no racial stat mods!) and a few classes have rules and taglines (not much flavor text though).

I'll try to get it a more permanent home once if I can keep up the momentum and it becomes useful. I'll put it in my sig or link it here or whatever if so.

PS: If you haven't heard, there's a discord server where some gaming den folks chat every once in a while, https://discord.gg/EJDh9c6 , and that's where I've been discussing the newest tome thing just these past two days. Everyone should come check it out.

Today I learned that the forum automatically turns HTML links into, well, links, right down to assuming the comma at the end is part of the link. Which meant it took me a few tries to actually join that discord._________________

FrankTrollman wrote:

And if there are any weeds that grow better in barren soil than laziness and ignorance, I don't know what they are (and don't care enough to find out).

Kaelik wrote:

Because powerful men get away with terrible shit, and even the public domain ones get ignored, and then, when the floodgates open, it turns out there was a goddam flood behind it.

FrankTrollman wrote:

As far as death and human misery goes, Tobacco is basically World War II grinding on forever with no real sign of stopping in our life times. Death camps and nuclear bombs and stuff are certainly dramatic, but public health crises are always and forever bigger than wars on the global scale.

Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!